Monday, August 30, 2010

All back okay from North London, and Europe's biggest Carnival. Wow, what a blast!

I was with a small volunteer security team looking after certain groups of very nice young ladies in skimpy costumes. It's a tough job, sometimes. Even the rain on Sunday didn't dampen the spirits, as you can see from the photo above.

A great time, top food and music, and warm fuzzy feelings all around - and a particular thanks to those 'Grenada' girls (you know who you are...) and their little souvenir they gave me - one of the Grenada Flag hankerchiefs they'd been wearing tied aroung their thighs ... Oh, boy.

A perfect event to demonstrate London's multi-cultural nature - and apart from a few drunks, almost no trouble.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Seventeen US soldiers from a Colorado military base who mostly served in
Iraq have been linked to violent killings and attempted killings since
their return to US soil. Three of them came from one platoon -
highlighting how a generation of American soldiers are struggling to
cope with life after military service.

Look, everyone who served in either 'Raq or 'Ghanners' went through similair combat stress. The difference is in the selection, training and leadership of troops. I hate to beat up on the Yanks, but frankly, the average US soldier is almost unfit to be a US soldier.

A very high proportion of them are relatively uneducated country boys, or from small towns, for whom the military is the only option, and who have never or rarely been outside their own state. Having no experience or appreciation of other cultures, and not having this understanding taught to them in basic training, they tend to see any non-American (especially non-Christian) as a sub-culture, with predictable results. Growing up in small-town America these days, even with worldwide communications, is a very blinkered, jingoistic childhood.

One of the many benefits in the UK of living in a multi-cultural environment is that even without foreign travel we have a far better understanding and appreciation of other races, religeons and creeds. Add to that our natural British politeness and the far better cultural training the British military receive before posting, and it's easy to understand why British Combat Units tend to get on far better with the locals than the 'Septics'.

The reason the US send sub-standard soldiers into combat zones is that they need the numbers. No wonder that these boys suffer so much from PTSD, resulting in their inability to cope when back in the US.

Superintendent Chamberlain, 43, pleaded guilty on the day her trial was due to start. She had originally denied the offence, arguing that the speed gun used by her Nottinghamshire force colleague was not accurate.

Sentencing her to six penalty points on her licence with £1,500 to pay in fines and costs, District Judge Tim Devas criticised her constabulary for resolving ‘serious offences’ through reprimands.

He told Nottingham magistrates: ‘The police have certain powers regarding criminal offences to make decisions regarding whether or not to prosecute, or issue a ­caution or reprimand. In the year I have been in Nottingham I have been extremely alarmed by the amount of cases where officers took it upon themselves to issue cautions or deal with cases in the way this officer did.’

He said it was a 'judicial matter to deal with people who have committed serious criminal offences' and a 'matter of discretion' for the police.'

And he added: ‘I hope (this case) will at least leave a message that will cascade down through all ­levels of the force that they do not make decisions like this. It was ­completely wrong and I hope they have been re-educated.’

The judge said he was sure the constable must have been under some pressure ‘with regard to who the defendant was’. He said: ‘If it was 59mph in a 30mph zone, can you imagine in any of your wildest dreams that any of us would get off?'

I should think when the Royal British Legion appears at the International Court in The Hague, they'll claim they had no idea the £4.6m "gift" they received from warlord Mister Tony Blair was blood money from a criminal.

"We just thought it was a charming present from an admirer", they'll say, although Mia Farrow will contradict this by suggesting she'd warned the Legion about the origins of the donation, and add she'd witnessed them being "flirtatious" with Mr Blair on a number of occasions.

Seriously ...

You can't blame the British Legion for accepting this money, because we seem to have devised a system for looking after disabled soldiers that depends on donations from book advances. Other more backward countries still use the old-fashioned method of providing money from the society that sent them to war.

But we've developed a more reliable method of waiting for someone's book money.

I suppose when a limbless soldier first applies for assistance, they're told, "If JK Rowling comes through you're in luck. Otherwise you'll have to get about on a wheelbarrow I'm afraid."

But there's only one thing we can know for certain. Cherie will be
bloody furious. She probably sat at the meeting going "Give it away? The
lot? Aaaaaaaagh!! What if instead we let some of the wounded live in one of
our flats for a bit, at a reduced rent, as long as they keep the garden
tidy?"

We hear a lot about overconsumption, and how our resource-heavy
lifestyles are depleting the earth's resources. But exact numbers—how
much we're using and how quickly—are much harder to come by.

Enter
the Global Footprint Network, which for the last few years has
calculated out the point in the year at which the world's population has
exceeded the resources available to sustain it: Earth Overshoot Day, and it's today.

Saturday, August 21, 2010

Thursday, August 19, 2010

I recently decided to rescue an old birdfeeder, clean it up, and hang it on my veranda, hoping maybe that I might get a few visitors. Having filled it with Bill Oddie's Wild Bird Seed Mix, and despite it being hung only a few feet from my desk, I can report that the feeder is getting absolutely hammered by birds.

I can't recognise the types yet, but at least three or four different types so far, sometimes many at any one time. Must get me a bird book so I can figure out what they are.

For the love of the game. He's retired three times now, and he's come back three times because he still wants it.

This will be Favre's 20th year in the NFL (they breed 'em tough down in Southern Mississippi) and Favre has also made one mark his own - he is the first ever Grandfather to be listed as a current player in the NFL.

Over here in the UK we get so blase about our wimpy, play-acting, cheating Premiership Football players (who wouldn't last ten minutes in an NFL game).

It's good to see someone play purely for the love of the sport that's been good to him.

If Tony Blair thinks that by donating the earnings from his memoirs - a tiny proportion of his total income since leaving office - he can wash his hands clean of the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis slaughtered due to his war crimes, he could not be more wrong. Read more...

Monday, August 16, 2010

Saturday night at the Cricketers in Kingston. Well, once in a while you have to blow the cobwebs off, have a few beers with a few mates and listen to a loud, cracking blues band.

It helps that the maniac drummer on the skins was mate Dave W., who’s birthday it was. I even showed up early to help him set up but mostly got in his way, I think.

Awesome band, and loud, too. Nice we had our own private smoking balcony!

… And if the music between sets was not to your taste, that’s my fault - we rigged up my mp3 player to the sound system (well, sound tech Jamie did) to provide ambient background, so the tracks were my taste. Not all good.

Friday, August 13, 2010

While I appreciate the need for a review (MOD has 85,000 pen-pushers for 100,000 troops) we need to be careful here…

The last DSR came 6 months before ‘Ghaners’ ; The one before was 1 year before Kuwait ; and the previous Review was 6 months before the Argies invaded the Falklands. Conflicts, by their very nature, cannot be predicted nor allowed for.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

The murdered medical workers in Northern Afghanistan were probably killed by bandits, but the Taliban have claimed responsibility.

The Taliban claimed that these doctors providing medical care for some of the poorest Afghans were ‘spying for America’. Yet when we capture individual Taliban fighters we have no option but to provide them with every possible care and attention, and protect their rights.

I have a great respect for islamic culture and traditions, their reverence for family, education, their tribal loyalties, and their care of the elderly. In some ways Muslims are more civilised than western christians.

But the Talibans' claiming of a murder they possibly did not play any part in, does show certain elements of the Islamic World in their true light. Inhume, brutal and cowardly. Sometimes, we are civilised, and they are not.

PostScript added 12/08//2010:

Some experts in the region (I bow to their superior knowledge) have now stated that it is now more likely that local bandits carried out the atrocity, (as if this would deflect any undue criticism of the Taliban.)

However, since the Taliban both initially claimed reponsibility, and allowed it to occur in their ‘territory’, it is clear that both actions show tacit agreement with shooting dead unarmed foreign medical workers, regardless who pulled the triggers.

Friday, August 06, 2010

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

Monday, August 02, 2010

Ok, I get the fact that there’s a debate about breastfeeding in the media right now, but here’s a point …

Why are we interested in Gisele Bundchen’s opinion?

She may have valid views on the fashion, modelling or beauty business - I wouldn’t be interested in her opinions, but I’d recognise her expertise and experience - but why are we interested in her opinions on child care or child nutrition?

It seems that every 2-bit celeb who gets pregnant seems to feel that they have the duty to enforce their ‘wisdom’ on us, even after so little experience of motherhood.

On the subject of breastfeeding, I’d much rather hear from a nutritionist on the subject - but as there are so few celebrities in that field, I guess their opinions don’t matter.